Tick, Tick… No boom. :|

This is what I look like these days. My hair grew in darker. There are days when I look at Etta’s hair and have a longing for my colour back but I’m not mad. It’s still curly and it isn’t grey so, identity = intact.

Sometimes you just need to get it all out.

It’s coming… the two year anniversary. I try to put it in a little box inside my brain and lock it up, but turns out, I’m no Houdini.

Two years ago today I was on the way to get an x-ray, after a failed attempt to be admitted to the hospital with an entire swollen body, face, difficulty breathing and the inability to walk up a flight of stairs without nearly passing out. 

It would be less than 24 hours before my doctor would call me back and say they found something, they didn’t know what it was, but what was certain is I would need a CT scan with dye — immediately. 

And now I sit here. “Healthy”. With the impending doom of February 22nd tick-tick-ticking away at the back of my brain. In the pit of my stomach. In the fatigue I’ve been feeling this last 30-ish days. Will it always be like this? Will there come a time when January and February as a whole aren’t triggers? Is it just that it’s been so hideously grey out? That winter is zipping by without the fun of a park full of snow? Without the joy of playing in it with the kids? Without that beautiful winter sun hitting the deep snow and bringing us little glimpses of light? Is it the pre-menopause (thanks genetics and chemotherapy for this early rollercoaster ride) wrecking havoc on my life and my brain? Is that what has me here? Or is it just the tick-tick-tick of the anniversary clock?

The reminder that it really happened. The reminder that I’m a cancer survivor at 38. The reminder that I’m not in the clear yet. I haven’t hit that two-year marker of remission. The longing for June 30 to hurry up and get here so my stats can drop. The chances of recurrence with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma dramatically drop after the two-year mark. The next milestone is five years, at which point I’m considered cured. 

And I know… I hear you. I hear all the voices around me say “you’ll get there”; “you made it”; “you’re going to be fine.” And I appreciate it, I do. But I know in my body, in every cell of my being, that this feeling never goes away. It fades in time. I know this from grief. So. Much. Grief. I know it never goes away. I feel that in my bones. The people I love who I’ve lost (by way of death or cut ties) are with me still. I think of them. Not every day, though, in some flashes of time, every day. But always in sporadic moments.

I think of the friends I’ve lost along the way. The good ones. The ones I thought were ride-or-dies. And who, for that moment, were. But I outgrew them, or they outgrew me. I couldn’t help but hope when I was sick maybe they’d pop back in to say hi. And let me know they’re okay. And that they hoped I would be, too. But, they didn’t. They’re gone. I’m dead to them. They’re dead to me. But they’re not. They’re in the periphery. I think of them from time-to-time. Wonder what I could have done differently. I wonder if they think the same? I wonder if we all think these things. Are the people we love ever really gone? Or do they always linger? 

I was chatting with a friend later who knows somebody that I used to know. (Sidenote: whatever happened to that guy that wrote that song? It was G O O D).

“I’m surprised they didn’t reach out,” they said. 
“Me, too.” And that’s that.

Regardless, all I’m saying is I know. I know these pains are never really gone. They last. They stay. They just get easier to deal with or you grow enough that you can figure out how to breathe through them in a new way. To say “oh, hey grief, you filthy little asshole, how’s it going? Me? No, I’m fine.” And if you’re not fine, you learn it’ll pass. Maybe the next day, you’ll be fine. If not, the day after. Or the day after that.

So I guess that’s the lesson. I’m going to be here. In this. Until the next doctor’s appointment. Until I get another “everything looks great”. Until I know my LDL levels are where they should be. Until I know what the next step is. What I need to find out to hold on. What I need to breathe through to thrive. 

If this isn’t you. If you’re on the outside looking in, I promise, I will be fine. It’s a fleeting moment. A fleeting feeling. It doesn’t upend my life. It doesn’t make it impossible to have joy. I have a lot of it. But there are these moments. When you just need to get it all out. To throw it into the void and hope it lands. So it isn’t living inside you. Eating you alive.

As I type this I’m dripping sweat. I’m working out regularly again. I’ve gone back to dance. I tap on Thursdays now and I LOVE IT. Willis always says “oh yeah, you have tappa tappa tonight” and I laugh as I leave before bedtime so I can have an hour for joy. For glory. For being in my body and making my feet make noises. This year, I’m trying to restore my body to its once strong state. I got a new therapist and she’s spectacular. New nuggets every time. She gave me the space to realize, I didn’t have the mental capacity last year to rebuild. I thought I would, but I just didn’t. And while I may be angry with myself that I let 2022 pass me by without getting stronger; without rebuilding to my best self. I’m learning to let that go — to give myself the compassion I so easily give to others. 

After decades of work on myself. Of knowing my boundaries. My faults. My hurdles. I’m still not there yet. I’m not at a place of peace. I am sometimes. And others, less so. But right now, getting some of it out. That’s step one. And step one starts over and over and over and over again as long as we’re here on this spinning blue rock. It’s deeply annoying. And I feel the same way every time “why am I here again? I’ve already done this work.” 

Until I’m reminded, that’s the deal. That’s the deal we make to be here on this planet. To live in our bodies. To breathe without pain. To let that heart beat as long as divinely possible. That’s the deal we make to be here. That’s the deal. Until the end.